All this while, Nicole always had that girl-next-door image. Hence, it gave Sheila a big shock when Nicole came out of her room. The Nicole in front of her looked like a classy model with a feisty personality. This new woman was probably formed through the influence of the arrogant yet charming Evan, who spent a lot of time with her.
It was said that if two people stayed together long enough, similarities between them would start to appear. This was, in fact, true for Nicole and Evan.
‘‘Let’s go.’’
‘‘Nicole, just enjoy yourself once we’re at the mall, alright? Focus on the things and gifts you want to buy and ignore everything else. After that, we’ll go and meet the kids at the Seet Residence.’’
‘‘Okay.’’ Nicole’s face was beaming with a smile when she said that. Feeling excited, she flooded her mind with a list of gifts she would prioritize looking for at the mall later.
When they reached the mall, Nicole first passed through a toy store. The store was filled with various types and different sizes of toys, to which none had caught Nicole’s attention. Since her daughters were almost ten, she wanted to buy some educational toys for them instead.
Thus, Nicole searched every corner of the store, and she finally found a Baguenaudier, which was said to be effective in improving children’s intellect. There was also an intricate lock puzzle that she found at the store, which she thought that her sons, Kyle and Juan, would also find interest in.
She then walked up to pick up the lock puzzle and examined it closely.
‘‘Do you think I could solve this puzzle?’’
‘‘Of course! All you need is some time to figure it out. This is suitable not only for kids but adults as well. It helps to kill some time, and in the meantime, distracts kids from their phones. So it’s definitely better for their eyesight,’’ explained patiently by the owner of the store.
Nicole was shocked by the complicated structure of the lock puzzle because even she was having a hard time solving it.
‘‘This puzzle’s origin dates back to Ancient China and uses what they called the Bagua principal. You need to carefully inspect the sunken parts of the lock. Each of them is slightly different.’’ The store owner hinted.
Nicole wrapped her head around the puzzle for a while and thought that the puzzle was riveting. Being intrigued, she found herself frowning in contemplation and also inadvertently used her hands to tinker with the puzzle.
The expression that Nicole had made Sheila feel uneasy. Sheila was worried that the puzzle would annoy Nicole, making her emotionally unstable thus letting her hallucinations happen again.
‘‘Nicole, let’s drop the puzzle for now. We’ll leave it to Kyle and Juan to solve it later. In the meantime, why don’t we find gifts for Maya and Nina?’’ Sheila walked up to her with a smile. After gently grabbing the puzzle from Nicole’s hands, she gave it to the store owner to wrap it up.
Having left the store, Nicole was still fixated on the lock puzzle’s complex structure. As she was picking out clothes for Nina and Maya, she suddenly came up with a solution for the puzzle and turned around.
As Nicole was walking back to the toy store, her head started hurting. The people in front of her looked surreal and contrived. It felt like she was in a dream. She took a couple more steps and started feeling as if she was floating. For some reason, her body felt lighter than usual.
A toddler, who was trotting slowly behind his mother, passed by Nicole that instant. That little boy looked a lot like the younger Juan to her.
She took a closer look and was adamant that the young boy was actually Juan.
She rushed to the boy, bent over, and carried him up from the ground. ‘‘Juan, how could you just run away from home by yourself? But it’s okay now, mommy’s here to take you home, okay?’’ said Nicole.
The young boy looked at her curiously, not knowing what she was blabbering about. He only thought that the woman in front of him was beautiful and carried a nice scent.
After following Nicole for a while, the young boy finally realized that something was wrong, and he started crying.
‘‘Juan, don’t cry. Mommy is right here. We’ll go home now.’’
‘‘Mommy, I want my mommy. Where’s my mommy-’’
‘‘You don’t remember mommy now? I’m right here, see?’’
‘‘Mommy-’’
An endless stream of tears was flowing down the boy’s eyes. He started struggling to get away from Nicole but to no avail.
Nicole was perplexed by the boy’s reaction. Her Juan was never this belligerent towards her and would have stopped crying at that point when she hugged him.
‘‘Juan, are you feeling sick or something? Are you hungry? Mommy’s gonna get you something to eat, okay?’’
‘‘Mommy… I want my mommy-’’ The boy couldn’t stop bawling.
The intense crying of the boy caught the attention of others at the mall. The boy’s mother heard the faint sound of a child crying behind her, and she turned around, only to find out that her child was missing.
The mother tensed up and anxiously looked in the direction where the sound was coming from. And there he was, being carried away by Nicole further and further away from her.
